Ukraine is officially transitioning to a new defence governance model that Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov has termed the “mathematics of war.” This concept marks a fundamental shift in approach: procurement of critical military equipment will no longer depend on the subjective judgment of individual officials, but on the analysis of large-scale data. Drones are set to play a central role in this new data-driven defence model.
In March 2026, the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine officially introduced a transition to an automated needs assessment model based on frontline data. The General Staff now formulates requests exclusively according to tactical and technical specifications, without indicating specific product names. The list and volume of procurements will be determined using UAV rankings generated from combat data collected through digital systems.
Oleksandr Veherzhynskyi, a researcher at NAKO, explores why drones have become the “pilot” of this mathematical approach in his op-ed for Ukrainska Pravda.